The new Memphis venture group Seed Hatchery hopes to plant six innovative new companies into home soil. Financial investments, mentorship and a business-owners’ Boot Camp are part of a 90-day process of entrepreneurial training.
Eric Mathews, president of Seed Hatchery, said his company is one of only 10 similar companies in the state whose mission is to establish new companies with creative, mostly tech-oriented products or services.
“The ideas (for the startup companies) should be innovative in nature, but within the first 30 days they change very rapidly,” Mathews said. “It’s just the design of the program. We do a lot of great customer discovery work in the first 30 days, and people quickly know that we didn’t select them because of their ideas, because plenty of people have ideas.”
Choomogo will offer cell phone and digital device charging kiosks with interactive touch screens at universities and other high-traffic venues. Use of the kiosks will be free to customers and venues and profit will be generated by advertising revenue.
Love and Villarreal got the idea for Choomogo after reading a Business Week article about a similar product in New York City. Love said their product will differ in that the touch screen will allow customers to play games and read sports and fashion news while they wait for the charge to complete.
Besides Choomogo, Seed Hatchery invested in obeedo, which will offer a drive-thru style grocery store from which customers purchase groceries they ordered online.
Another startup, Work for Pie, will help score technical talent online for those seeking or offering jobs in specialized fields.
The company Krikle is creating a smartphone app to allow users to create virtual graffiti specific to and accessible from one physical location using GPS.
Another, stiQRd, enables smartphones to carry information for customer-loyalty programs in lieu of carrying swipe cards on keychains.
And Smarter City will use a digital mesh network to provide information about the availability of parking spaces through the use of digital sensors
Eric Mathews, president of Seed Hatchery, said his company is one of only 10 similar companies in the state whose mission is to establish new companies with creative, mostly tech-oriented products or services.
“The ideas (for the startup companies) should be innovative in nature, but within the first 30 days they change very rapidly,” Mathews said. “It’s just the design of the program. We do a lot of great customer discovery work in the first 30 days, and people quickly know that we didn’t select them because of their ideas, because plenty of people have ideas.”
Choomogo will offer cell phone and digital device charging kiosks with interactive touch screens at universities and other high-traffic venues. Use of the kiosks will be free to customers and venues and profit will be generated by advertising revenue.
Love and Villarreal got the idea for Choomogo after reading a Business Week article about a similar product in New York City. Love said their product will differ in that the touch screen will allow customers to play games and read sports and fashion news while they wait for the charge to complete.
Besides Choomogo, Seed Hatchery invested in obeedo, which will offer a drive-thru style grocery store from which customers purchase groceries they ordered online.
Another startup, Work for Pie, will help score technical talent online for those seeking or offering jobs in specialized fields.
The company Krikle is creating a smartphone app to allow users to create virtual graffiti specific to and accessible from one physical location using GPS.
Another, stiQRd, enables smartphones to carry information for customer-loyalty programs in lieu of carrying swipe cards on keychains.
And Smarter City will use a digital mesh network to provide information about the availability of parking spaces through the use of digital sensors
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